Overview
JavaScript is Bulgaria's most elevated secondary barrier
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.4% |
| Antibot | 20.5% |
| CAPTCHA | 21.6% |
| JavaScript | 43.3% |
| Rate Limiting | 13% |
| TLS | 18.6% |
WAF dominates at 92.4%, slightly below the global 93.1%. Among secondary barriers, JavaScript (43.3%) and Antibot (20.5%) both sit at or above global rates, while CAPTCHA (21.6%) runs modestly below the 23.1% global figure.
Barrier Landscape
JavaScript tops Bulgaria's active secondary defences
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.4% |
| Antibot | 20.5% |
| CAPTCHA | 21.6% |
| JavaScript | 43.3% |
| Rate Limiting | 13% |
| TLS | 18.6% |
| Has robots.txt | 79.2% |
| Blocks AI crawlers | 13.1% |
WAF is present on 92.4% of Bulgarian sites. Among secondary barriers, JavaScript (43.3%) and Antibot (20.5%) are the two most widely deployed, both at or above their respective global averages.
Most Bulgarian sites carry at least two barriers
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 barriers | 5% |
| 1 barrier | 29.9% |
| 2 barriers | 34.1% |
| 3 barriers | 17.8% |
| 4 barriers | 8.6% |
| 5 barriers | 4.3% |
| 6 barriers | 0.3% |
34.1% of Bulgarian sites carry exactly two barriers — the most common count. Single-barrier sites account for 29.9%; 5.0% have none. Sites with three or more barriers total 31.0%.
Most Bulgarian sites are Easy to access
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 1.7 |
The median recommended tier is 2, meaning fewer than half of sites are accessible via plain HTTP. The mean tier is 1.67.
Nearly nine in ten Bulgarian sites are Simple or Easy to access
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 48.2% |
| 2 - Easy | 39.5% |
| 3 - Moderate | 9.8% |
| 4 - Complex | 1.8% |
| 5 - Advanced | 0.7% |
Tier 1 accounts for 48.2% of sites and Tier 2 for 39.5%, giving a combined 87.7%. Tier 3 covers 9.8%, Tier 4 1.8%, and Tier 5 0.7%.
robots.txt
AI crawlers top Bulgaria's robots.txt bot categories
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| AI crawlers | 14.5% |
| SEO / search indexing | 12.2% |
| SEO audit tools | 13.3% |
| Commercial scrapers | 8.1% |
| Social / content scrapers | 6% |
| Archive / research crawlers | 4.5% |
| Monitoring / uptime bots | 0.5% |
Across all 1,104 Bulgarian sites, 14.5% name at least one AI crawler in their robots.txt. SEO audit tools (13.3%) and SEO/search indexing bots (12.2%) follow.
Uniform rules are Bulgaria's most common robots.txt posture
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Uniform per-agent rules (no path mixing) | 39.8% |
| Path-level mixed rules for same agent | 34.1% |
| Allow-only (no disallow rules) | 2.4% |
| Mixed AI posture (block some, allow others) | 2% |
| Blanket Disallow: / | 2.8% |
39.8% of Bulgarian sites use uniform per-agent rules; 34.1% apply path-level mixed rules. Blanket Disallow: / covers 2.8% and mixed AI posture 2.0%. 20.8% of sites have no robots.txt.
GPTBot faces the most Disallow rules in Bulgaria's robots.txt
| Disallowed | Allowed (whitelisted) | |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | 11.1% | 1.7% |
| CCBot | 8.2% | 0.7% |
| ClaudeBot | 8% | 0.6% |
| Google-Extended | 7.9% | 1.1% |
| Bytespider | 6.5% | 0.3% |
| meta-externalagent | 2.8% | — |
| ChatGPT-User | 5.9% | 2% |
| PerplexityBot | 5.7% | 1.4% |
| Applebot-Extended | 4.6% | 0.4% |
| OAI-SearchBot | 4.1% | 1.5% |
| anthropic-ai | 4.6% | 0.5% |
GPTBot is named in a Disallow rule on 11.1% of all Bulgarian sites — the highest block rate of any AI agent. ChatGPT-User leads on the allow side at 2.0% of all sites.
Five Bulgaria sectors all name at least one bot to restrict
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Computer & Video Games | 100% |
| Design | 100% |
| Entertainment | 100% |
| Retail | 100% |
| Visual Art | 100% |
| Adult | 90% |
| Automotive | 90% |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 90% |
| Ceramics & Pottery | 90% |
| Comics & Animation | 90% |
| Consumer Electronics | 90% |
| Foreign Language | 90% |
| General | 90% |
| Machinery | 90% |
| Mass Media | 90% |
Computer & Video Games, Design, Entertainment, Retail, and Visual Art each have 100% of their sites naming at least one bot to restrict in a Disallow rule.
Bulgaria's Facilities Services sector leads in explicitly allowing crawlers
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Facilities Services | 80% |
| Airlines | 70% |
| Architecture | 70% |
| Automotive | 70% |
| Photography | 70% |
| Publishing | 70% |
| Science | 70% |
| Telecom | 70% |
| Travel & Tourism | 70% |
| Education | 60% |
| Graphic Design | 60% |
| Non-Profit | 60% |
| Performing Arts | 60% |
| Pharmaceuticals | 60% |
| Plastics & Polymers | 60% |
Facilities Services has the highest explicit allow rate at 80% — meaning 80% of sites in that sector name at least one bot to allow. Nine sectors follow at 70%.
Industry Patterns
Jewellery & Luxury is Bulgaria's hardest sector to access programmatically
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jewellery & Luxury | 100% | 20% | 20% | 40% | 50% | 50% | 70% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Hospitality | 90% | 20% | 0% | 60% | 30% | 40% | 60% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Real Estate | 100% | 20% | 20% | 50% | 50% | 20% | 60% | 20% | Tier 3 |
| Equipment & Supplies | 90% | 30% | 30% | 40% | 20% | 0% | 70% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Automotive | 100% | 10% | 0% | 40% | 30% | 30% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Human Resources | 100% | 80% | 60% | 50% | 40% | 20% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 90% | 30% | 30% | 40% | 30% | 30% | 90% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Medical Devices | 90% | 0% | 0% | 60% | 10% | 10% | 90% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Computer Hardware | 100% | 10% | 0% | 30% | 20% | 30% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Apparel & Fashion | 90% | 10% | 20% | 50% | 30% | 40% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Customer Services | 100% | 10% | 20% | 50% | 30% | 20% | 60% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Restaurants | 90% | 40% | 30% | 50% | 30% | 20% | 60% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Retail | 90% | 10% | 0% | 60% | 10% | 20% | 100% | 40% | Tier 2 |
| Crafts | 100% | 20% | 30% | 50% | 10% | 10% | 80% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Public Safety | 100% | 10% | 30% | 60% | 10% | 20% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
Jewellery & Luxury has the highest mean recommended tier at 2.80. Hospitality and Real Estate follow at 2.70. A cluster of sectors sits between 2.10 and 2.40.
Seven Bulgarian sectors share the most accessible floor
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recruitment & Staffing | 100% | 40% | 50% | 40% | 0% | 10% | 70% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| TV & Film | 100% | 40% | 20% | 50% | 30% | 10% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Food & Beverages | 100% | 50% | 40% | 60% | 30% | 0% | 80% | 50% | Tier 2 |
| Design | 100% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 20% | 30% | 100% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Education | 100% | 20% | 10% | 30% | 10% | 10% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Machinery | 90% | 0% | 10% | 60% | 0% | 0% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Mail & Delivery | 70% | 30% | 10% | 10% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Transport & Logistics | 70% | 40% | 10% | 20% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Adult | 100% | 40% | 30% | 80% | 10% | 20% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Chemicals | 70% | 30% | 20% | 40% | 0% | 20% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Consumer Electronics | 80% | 20% | 10% | 40% | 10% | 40% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Import & Export | 100% | 30% | 40% | 50% | 0% | 30% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Manufacturing | 80% | 10% | 10% | 30% | 0% | 40% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Reference | 90% | 60% | 30% | 50% | 30% | 10% | 60% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Sporting Goods | 70% | 10% | 20% | 20% | 20% | 30% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
Adult, Chemicals, Consumer Electronics, Import & Export, Manufacturing, Reference, and Sporting Goods all record a mean tier of 1.90 — the lowest value in the bottom-industries group.